Our pets are easily the least frugal thing about us.
When we leave town, and are unable to take our pets with us, we usually leave our highly separation anxious dog at home with our roommate. We knock off a portion of his rent in exchange for his loving care, our dog does not have to go outside of a familiar environment, and we know she's in good hands. Our guinea pigs do not usually need much. It's a good situation all around. We've never had to deal with boarding or finding alternative pet care.
This Thanksgiving, that changed. We decided to go out of town. We were going to place that our dog would not be welcome on a travel mode that would not accommodate our dog and guineas. This would not be such a big deal, but our roommate decided to travel out of town for his holidays as well! The audacity of that man! Horrors! ;)
This was my first introduction to Getting PetCare 101, and let me tell you, it has been quite the lesson. Holiday bookings go fast in kennels, and I did not realize until a fairly late date that I needed a kennel booking.
We have friends and relatives in town, but none of them live super close to us. Since they would have to come over multiple times a day, we decided to look for professionals. Besides, many of our friends/family were also leaving town or having guests at their house.
Phase I was looking into having a pet sitter come to our house. The expense involved made that a no-go from the start. It also made me consider adding a side business of pet sitting. Maybe I will!
Phase II was doing research on local kennels. The first thing I did was see what vaccination kennels require. I always get rabies and other standard vaccines, but there were a couple that were required by various kennels to be allowed in. This was not terribly expensive, and my vet was wonderful in getting my pet in between appointments to get it over with. This is when I LOVE living in the internet age- it makes researching local options so much easier!
I selected kennel that got awesome reviews, had a nice, cage free environment (the Wonder Dog does not DO cages), webcams for helicopter dog moms (aka: me!), and was staffed 24 hours by actual breathing humans. It was also $20 a night, which seemed extremely reasonable. Of course, this awesome, clean, well reviewed kennel was also booked solid. Do'h!
I went and toured another kennel/day care someone mentioned, and was horrified by the conditions and appalled by the staff. This was just a drop in, and a quick internet search confirmed my sketchy feelings- terrible, terrible reviews. Back to square one! It also reinforced my intentions of not only finding a place to board the Wonder Dog, but find a clean, quality place to board her.
I asked around. I did more research. I called several promising kennels, only to be told that they were full for the holiday.
I finally found an awesome dog day care/kennel that specializes in smaller dogs. Since we had to work a lot with my dog on separation anxiety when we first got her, and she's not really interested in dogs on most days, I really did not want her to have to face a large pack of huge dogs. The day care only accepts a certain number a day, so there is not overcrowding. The smaller dog situation seemed better, plus the staff was friendly and professional. They also had openings! Score! We sent her to day care a few times before we boarded her so she would get used to us coming back. We hoped that this would make her less anxious when we left her for several days. (Shout out to Paws to Play in Wichita, KS! You're the BEST!)
Next Up: The Guinea Pig Sitter Adventure
1 comment:
Great post. We've been fortunate not to ever have to board our cats overnight. They have been boarded at the vet's for the day before, though, when we had work being done at the house. (Kitties couldn't stay at home for jackhammering through the floors, for example.) We trade catsitting with a group of friends. It works out well for us, and so far, there's always been someone in town when we've needed it.
Before meeting these friends, though, we had the teenager next door take care of our boys. We'd gotten to know the family a bit, and we liked their boys and felt we could trust the oldest with our pets' care. We paid him $50 for the week, which was a lot to him for very little work, but a huge savings for us, as kenneling would have been expensive. Plus, it meant that our boys got to stay in their own home. That worked well at the time, but I wouldn't do it now that Calvin is sick and needs medication. We want trustworthy adults for that job.
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